Thursday 22nd March, 2007
An interesting run down of Vista from The Inquirer. This is actually part two, part one is here.
The article repeats a few things that often seem to get overlooked or ignored:
Windows is a security nightmare. The reason we all get thousands of spams, the reason that we have to run virus and anti-spyware checkers that slow our high-power electricity-guzzling scalding-hot PCs down to the speed of the ones they replaced, the reason that the whole Internet is bogged down with sending all those spams, the reason that criminals hold websites to ransom for millions of dollars a year: it is all Windows' fault.
It's because of the hundreds of millions of compromised PCs that form zombie armies, sending spams, participating in distributed-denial-of-service attacks and so on, all without their owners' knowledge. They still work, they're just a bit slower. Who notices? Next year, you just buy a faster one. (With Vista on it.)
Depressing how people will settle for mediocrity, isn't it?
Friday 16th March, 2007
Link rot. Shame on ZDNet.
Rob. April 2015.
This has got to be a hoax. A funny one though. It is a comment on a ZDNet article.
Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?
That sounds preposterous to me.
There's more folks, there's more ... well worth the read. :)
Friday 16th March, 2007
It's a "huge conflict of interest" for one company to provide both an operating platform and a security platform, Symantec Corp. CEO John Thompson said during a keynote speech at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany.
The vendor is, of course, Microsoft.
I don't think there's any conflict of interest here at all. Well, maybe there is as far as the consumer is concerned, but does that really matter? Sell a deficient product, then sell another deficient product which purports to make the first deficient product less deficient. Hey, why bundle it if you can make an extra buck by selling it?
Wednesday 14th March, 2007
The title is rhetorical of course; not a chance. It does seem that Microsoft have suckered many people in the industry into believing that they are being friendly towards the Open Source movement.
Microsoft is crafting a multifaceted plan to approach open source from a number of different levels: Linux as an operating system competitor; interoperability with Linux in mixed environments; partnering with open source ISVs; development of Shared Source Licensing; contributions to and support for community development sites.
Ooh, "interoperability with Linux in mixed environments". Jeremy Allison has something to say about Microsoft's attitude to interoperability, from his experiences at the San Francisco 2005 Linuxworld conference:
Microsoft even joined in the fun by turning up as "Darth Vader" and a couple of "Star Wars" stormtroopers... It all gathered a lot of positive press for Microsoft of course, which is why they did it. "Look what good sports they are" everyone said, and of course they were, showing how much things have changed with Microsoft at a Linux show, talking about interoperability
Wow, maybe they are changing ... oh, hold on, there's more:
The week before the LinuxWorld San Francisco conference that Microsoft attended with such a flourish was the much quieter CIFS (Common Internet File System) conference, also in the Bay Area in Santa Clara. You remember CIFS don't you ? It's the file system that all Microsoft clients use to communicate with the Microsoft servers. The conference was started by Microsoft and was attended by all the server vendors who have to make their software actually interoperate with Microsoft clients. It's one of the largest events in the calendar for the Samba Team as we all get together with peer engineers from all CIFS vendor companies to make sure our software actually interoperates and works well together. Except for one major server vendor of course. The biggest one in fact. They didn't even bother to turn up, or send any engineers to work on interoperability. Can you guess who that was ? Maybe they were too busy getting ready for their presentations on "Interoperability" at LinuxWorld to actually do any work on interoperability.
So, what's it all about, all this courting of Open Source? Let back to our first article again, right near the top:
"It does seem to me that Microsoft is trying," says Michael Cherry, lead analyst at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Wash. "Bill Hilf seems to be trying to figure out how to get the advantages of the open source development methodology. And there's no question that one of the lessons of Vista development is that companies have to evolve their process of engineering. Microsoft needs to look at their processes and borrow best practices from anywhere they can get them."
(Emphasis added.)
So this is what it's all about. Saving money. It seems that the communist cancer is somewhat more efficient than some folks gave it credit for.
Trust Microsoft? Not me.
Tuesday 13th March, 2007
Richard Stallman has written a short article for the Boston Globe about file sharing.
The record companies, seeking to bully people who share music, have demanded that colleges identify students who share. They use smear terms such as "piracy" and "theft" that imply sharing is wrong. Don't believe it. Sharing is friendship; to attack sharing is to attack the basis of society.
Well, we all know that most musicians get almost nothing from the record companies. In fact, the record companies almost seem like drug pushers, the way they pay just enough to maintain the artists' dependency on them.
"Authors own their books and license them to publishers. When the contract runs out, writers gets their books back. But record companies own our copyrights forever."
Courtney Love
Back to Richard Stallman:
The real solution is to legalize sharing. This won't affect the record companies much, but if they did go out of business, we could rejoice that they can no longer threaten anyone.
They pay zero cents of your CD purchase price to musicians (except for superstars), so the absence of these companies would be no loss to society.
Hear, hear.